Play School: Snowflakes

This week's lesson in Play School was on snowflakes.

Concepts: The water cycle: Where do snowflakes come from?; Snowflakes are unique, like me!

Activities/Art: Snowflake painting: The kids dipped snowflake shaped cookie cutters into different shades of blue paint to make snowflake prints on construction paper.

Soap snowballs: I grated Ivory soap into a big bowl, got the kids hands wet, and helped them mold the grated soap into snowballs--do it the same way you would regular snowballs. This is a very messy project, so put newspaper down on the floor, wear smocks, and try to stay patient! I have to admit that I got frustrated with the mess it was making and had the kids finish up before they were ready :( Mean mommy. They loved squishing the gooey soap between their fingers as they molded the snowballs, and now they have a new useful bath toy! Two bars of Ivory soap yielded three good sized snowballs.

Books: Millions of Snowflakes by Mary McKenna Siddals; Simon and the Snowflakes by Gilles Tibo; The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen; The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story by Neil Waldman

Songs: {to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?"} Dance like snowflakes, dance like snowflakes--twirl around! Twirl around! Twirling, whirling snowflakes, twirling, whirling snowflakes, to the ground, to the ground.

{to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot"} I'm a little snowflake, look at me! No other snowflake is just like me. I am so unique, as you can see. And just as special as I can be!

Snack: Cinnamon snowflakes: I cut snowflakes out of tortillas using snowflake shaped cookie cutters, sprayed them with Pam, and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. Then I baked them for 6 minutes at 400 degrees. Yum! These would be great served with hot chocolate.